Article contributed by Jena Brown
To call These Violent Delights a dark academia novel is to simply brush the surface of the literary complexity that awaits the reader. It’s a dark novel that revolves around the pursuit of self-understanding in an academic setting, but it’s also so much more. The depths of darkness come from the characters own application and exploration into the murky ethics of psychology while posing philosophical thought experiments with discomforting ends. To open these pages is to embark on a journey with two boys as different as they are similar, but who are singularly capable of twisting affection into horror. These violent delights indeed have violent ends––only what violence awaits is part of the experience, unfolding into pure Hitchcockian tension woven throughout every page. It’s a profound story that dissects and explores the intense extremes of human nature.
It’s the early 1970’s when Paul Fleischer enters Pittsburgh university. He’s reeling from the death of his father and trying to recover from an incident that removed him from his previous school. In one of his early classes, he meets Julian Fromme, an intriguing and charming boy who is as drawn to Paul as Paul is to Julian and the two quickly become inseparable. But as their friendship grows into more, the boundaries between affection and obsession blur, until both boys become desperate to prove the lengths they’ll each go to stay together.
Paul and Julian are both deviously smart. They’re young and misunderstood by everyone around them. In fact, when they first meet, it’s because Julian takes Paul’s side in a classroom debate on the ethics in science. Their similar views draw them together, but their perception of themselves is mirrored back to the other, and their fascination pulls them closer still. They engage in hours of debate, pulling apart the theory of what makes someone evil. It’s all a thought experiment and both delight in being intellectually superior, building walls where they convince themselves that no one understands them.
This intense friendship grows into love. A passionate and consuming love amplified by the idea that most of the world would turn on them if the reality of their relationship were public. Whether true or not, they are convinced that all they have is each other. For all their intellect though, both boys carry a fatal flaw. They both carry wounds from a traumatic past. Wounds that haven’t quite healed, and as they partly stem from feeling like outcasts in their own families, bearers of disappointment and destined to fall short of family expectations, these wounds bring them together as much as they threaten to tear them apart. It’s only natural that under the pressure first love can provoke, these insecurities, fears, and doubts begin to fray and crack. Only, by the time they, and in turn we, see these fissures, it’s too late.
This is a story about a very particular kind of love. First love. The kind of love filled with blind certainty that no one has ever loved as intensely or as deeply or as profoundly. At times it’s difficult to remember that Paul and Julian are seventeen. They’re freshman at the university, but only because intellect and circumstance allowed them to attend. And yet, they are old souls, matured from their emotional trauma and aged by their internal scars. When they dissect philosophical questions or evaluate complex psychological ethical dilemmas, it’s with confidence and nuance only slightly tinted by their enthusiasm to mark their age. But beneath that, these questions mark how they’re both trying to find who they are and how they fit in the world, and for the first time have met someone they believe to be their equal. We’re reminded how intoxicating that recognition can be and understand when they both would do anything to keep it.
Often in dark literature, there is a barrier between the reader and the characters. We can empathise but it’s from a distance. It’s safe. But Nemerever has eroded that barrier. We see parts of ourselves in each of the characters, making this an intensely personal experience. This type of intimacy won’t be for everyone. There is a lot of heavy emotion and difficult topics addressed, and like any worthwhile philosophical endeavour, there aren’t tidy conclusions to be reached. It’s messy. And even when––or perhaps especially when––we don’t agree with the decisions these characters make; we can’t help but ache for them. Nemerever never lets us forget their humanity, even when they are in the midst of behaving the most inhumanely. At its heart, this is a story about two boys in a world that refuses to let them be who they are. That demands a life they aren’t equipped to give. What makes it tragic is that both Paul and Julian know this. And they dare to love each other anyway.
It’s difficult to believe that this book is Nemerever’s debut. The language is striking and precise and utterly profound. He wields his descriptions with confidence and strength, leading us into this world where it’s then impossible to leave. There’s a surreal, dreamscape quality to the prose. It’s lush and vivid, lulling us into submission while building an increasing sense of dread. And even then. Even anticipating the dark moments, they still manage to be a shocking surprise, punching us in the heart and the guts time and time again. The anticipation could be a character in its own right, always present, always demanding our attention and appearing consistently. Our anticipation is used against us, eliciting instinctual responses making this book a visceral experience instead of a literary one.
This complete immersion is a testament to the skill of Nemerever’s writing, but it also highlights his concrete grasp into the psychological dynamics of people at large and his characters in particular. This is a book written for readers interested in complex, nuanced, and deeply introspective books. But more than that, These Violent Delights is an emotionally charged story that crawls down into the darkest depths of our subconscious. This is a book that can’t help but provoke internal examination. It makes us think. It makes us feel. It pulls apart what we think we know about people and about ourselves. This isn’t a book to be read once and forgotten. It’s the type of book that unfolds in layers, revealing more about who we are and who we believe the characters to be every time we open the pages.
These Violent Delights is perfect for fans of The Secret History and stories told in Hitchcockian style. It’s an addicting and compelling debut that promises a future of storytelling with a loyal audience. The prose is stunning, where every word strikes succinctly and precisely. It’s a book for readers who revel in slow-building stories where we get to know the characters almost as well as we know ourselves. The intellectual questions, the psychological nuance, the philosophical examination will appeal to readers who enjoy the introspection as much as the story. All in all, These Violent Delights is a book literary fiction readers and dark academia fans will not want to miss.
These Violent Delights is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
The Secret History meets Call Me by Your Name in Micah Nemerever’s compulsively readable debut novel—a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence.
When Paul and Julian meet as university freshmen in early 1970s Pittsburgh, they are immediately drawn to one another. A talented artist, Paul is sensitive and agonizingly insecure, incomprehensible to his working-class family, and desolate with grief over his father’s recent death.
Paul sees the wealthy, effortlessly charming Julian as his sole intellectual equal—an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. He idolizes his friend for his magnetic confidence. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel. And admiration isn’t the same as trust.
As their friendship spirals into an all-consuming intimacy, Paul is desperate to protect their precarious bond, even as it becomes clear that pressures from the outside world are nothing compared with the brutality they are capable of inflicting on one another. Separation is out of the question. But as their orbit compresses and their grip on one another tightens, they are drawn to an act of irrevocable violence that will force the young men to confront a shattering truth at the core of their relationship.
Exquisitely plotted, unfolding with a propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is a novel of escalating dread and an excavation of the unsettling depths of human desire.
